Prince chose a benefit concert for the financially beleaguered Minnesota Dance Theater company as the first occasion anyone would hear the heart of Purple Rain: I Would Die 4 U, Computer Blue, Purple Rain, Let’s Go Crazy and Baby I’m a Star. Also in the 70-minute set: Delirious, Automatic, DMSR and Little Red Corvette from 1999, plus When You Were Mine from Dirty Mind, a cover of Joni Mitchell’s A Case of You, and the still unreleased Electric Intercourse. Three of those Purple Rain tracks came straight from that First Avenue performance, recorded from a mobile truck outside the club, with overdubs and edits added later
The version of Purple Rain aired that night was 13 minutes long, cut to eight for the LP. “My first reaction was, ‘Wow, this is almost a country song,’” drummer Bobby Z later told Spin magazine. It’s strange to hear the song sounding alone, without the audience singing along – they’ve never heard it before.
The show also marked the first appearance of Wendy Melvoin, replacing Dez Dickerson on guitar (“I was scared to death but I loved it,” she later said, describing it as her “make-or-break evening”). Thus was solidified the lineup of what became “the Revolution”, the band that would feature prominently in Prince’s coming film. Notwithstanding the murky sound and sweaty milieu, the concert captures Prince at his primping, purple peak
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Monday, 25 April 2016
Ulrike Meinhof
Ulrike was born on 7th October 1934 in Oldenburg, Germany, her father being a Doctor of Art History who became the head of the City of Jena’s museum when Ulrike was two years old. Both of her parents died of cancer, her father in 1940 and her mother in 1948. Ulrike and her older sister were then looked after by her mother’s former border Renate Riemack. Riemack was a committed socialist and his views were to have a big impact on the young and vulnerable Ulrike. In direct contrast to the ill educated Andreas Baader, Ulrike was well educated studying sociology, philosophy and German studies at Marburg. In 1957 she was studying at a University near Munster. Here she showed the radicalism that was to lead her to a path of violence, joining the Socialist Student Union and getting involved in anti rearmament protests and anti nuclear weapon protests. She also demonstrated her skill at article and report writing for the student newspapers which would be her future career.
She joined the outlawed German communist party in 1957 and was the editor of the left wing magazine Konkret from 1962 until 1964. During this time she married Klaus Rohl, the publisher of Konkret and gave birth to twins Regine and Bettina in 1962. In 1962 Ulrike had surgery to remove a brain tumour and some claim during the surgery her brain was damaged which lead to her future violent behaviour, a post mortem after her death did show that her brain had been damaged. The couple divorced in 1968 following a year of separation. Her writings were demonstrating a more radical view, and a move from protest to more violent methods. After writing an article about an arson attack she met up with Andreas Baader and his partner Gudrun Ensslin, it was meeting that was to directly lead to her becoming a terrorist and ultimately her death. By 1969 she was committed to the life of a terrorist / guerrilla to the extent that the airing of a short film she produced ‘Bambule’ was delayed (in fact it was finally aired in 1997). Her transition from journalist to terrorist was completed in May 1970 when she helped Baader escape prison via a library he was studying in. The resulting gun battle left 3 people wounded and Meinhof with a 10,000 DM bounty on her capture.
From 1970 to 1972 Meinhof took part in a wide variety of terrorist activities including bombings, robbery, kidnapping and shootings. She also continued to be a prolific writer producing many articles and doctrines for the RAF; these include the most famous “The concept of the Urban Guerrilla”. On 14th June 1972 following a tip off Ulrike Meinhof was arrested along with another member of the RAF, Gerhard Mueller. Like the other trials of the Baader-Meinhof gang, Ulrike’s trial was long and complex, after the first couple of years of hearings she was sentenced to 8 years while other charges were being considered. Two years into her 8 year sentence on 9th May 1976 Ulrike Meinhof was found hanged in her cell using a rope made from a towel. The official verdict was of suicide following her increasing isolation from other members of the gang who were imprisoned with her. Evidence indicates that they saw her as weak. Considering the suspicious manner of the deaths of the rest of the gang a year later it is not surprising that some claim Meinhof was in fact murdered by the German authorities, although this highly unlikely.
In a bizarre twist it was discovered that the brain of Ulrike had been removed for study before her burial six days after her death. Evidence shows that it was damaged during an earlier operation to remove a tumour. In 2002 the daughters of Ulrike Meinhof requested the brain be returned and buried with her and despite claims the brains had gone missing it was interred with her in December 2002. Ulrike Meinhof has become something of cult figure and is often given more credit and influence than she really had within the RAF. She was a contrasting figure to the violent , school drop out of Andreas Baader and fitted the classic profile of the well educated socialist reactionary that often were lured into terrorism due to their idealistic beliefs. She made a good focus for press attention and has had several quotes attributed to her including “Anti-Semitism is really a hatred of capitalism”, it was this comment which lead to some naming the RAF as ‘Hitler’s children” and on political action she is quoted as saying the much paraphrased quote “If one sets a car on fire, that is a criminal offence, if one sets hundreds of cars on fire , that is political action”.
Dugdale-Pointon, T. (20 August 2007), Ulrike Meinhof (1934-1976)
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Repost
My Mother, the Terrorist
Sunday, 24 April 2016
Gruff Rhys - I Love EU
My new song genuinely came to me in a daydream whilst I was trying to tune-in my faulty DAB radio. I heard a snippet of news about this badly timed referendum on staying/leaving the EU and suddenly it hit me hard how much I’d miss it if the UK, true to it’s tradition of recreational vandalism managed inexplicably to kick itself out of this sophisticated European nightclub.
The club itself? Well it’s a very complex warren of a nightclub with many rooms playing very different songs. People rarely dance to the same tune but it’s the best night out. This song is basically just an attempt to make an emotional case for Mother Europe – this flawed, fantastic, potentially Utopian mega-club that I’ve been lucky enough to grow up in.
My initial idea was to record an undercover song that could be played to xenophobes as a regular love song. I had no inkling that I was going to be writing this particular song on that day but somehow or other that’s how things turned out so I went with it. In the end I didn’t want to sit on the fence so I called it “I Love EU”.
This song isn’t about definitive political policy detail but about the genuine friendship I’ve felt as a touring musician living in the EU – which, as a child of the 1970s, is all I’ve ever known.
In his autobiography, Tropical Truth, the Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso once wrote of his continued belief in the illusion of Brazil as a tropical beacon of inclusion even when he himself had been famously detained in solitary confinement then exiled by a military government for singing subversive psychedelic Yoruba-beat pop songs in green plastic trousers.
Equally it can be helpful despite of the real threat of an undemocratic corporate take over to continually imagine the parallel universe Europe of our wildest idealist dreams.
This very complex warren of a nightclub It’s still under construction and there’s some serious structural problems and some of the speakers have blown out but Connie Plank and Marlene Detricht are sorting it out as we speak. The bouncer is trying to keep people out but there’s a massive hall inside that could hold a lot of those people queuing. This weekend sees the Euro Classics Weekender grace it’s dance floors. Daft Punk, Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder and Black Box are all playing. Abba, Brigitte Fontaine and Can and are on tomorrow. Sade, Stereolab, New Order and Technotronic play Sunday afternoon whilst Andy VOTEL and Mina Minerva are preparing a season of Baltic electro for next month. Picasso is on visuals. Ibiza is the outdoor section where the smokers and vapers seem to congregate.
Nobody in their right minds want to leave, but like any paradise there are flip sides.
Current management are trying to charge people for drinking the tap water – but it’s conceivable that the membership can arrange a take over in time and share it out. It seems to be worth it in the long term as when there was a bunch of separate clubs in town there used to be a lot of fights at closing time and now we can share the costs of the door security and the beer supplier.
Listen, don’t get me wrong – I’m just a romantic club singer but I can obviously see there’s lots to change about the lack of transparency and democracy of the current elitist EU night club. There are bullshit VIP rooms where our elected representatives are not let in. I’ve a lot of time for many of the arguments about leaving the current form of the EU for this reason but my personal hunch is that in the throes of this current colossal migrant crisis the Leave campaign as it is just provides a platform of hate for those who carry the burden of nostalgia for war and Empire. Whilst there is leadership in the case against TTIP and promising organisations like dIEM25 (who are campaigning for a Democratic Europe by 2025) in place it seems to me to be worth pursuing with this ambitious post war plan to rid the continent of war and fascism.
The arrogant, reckless British Prime Minister David Cameron set the June date for this referendum in the face of protests from the first ministers of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland who are all in the middle of their own election cycles and in Wales’s case, with no thanks to the aforementioned Prime minister, facing a further catastrophic collapse of industry. When extreme governments like the current one are in power in Westminster, the EU seems like a comparative sanctuary of sanity. The largely progressive Celtic bloc have made alliances throughout Europe with other smaller nations that once were near suffocated by the monocultural outlook of the colonial era. From this perspective, which is true for me – the EU is also symbolic of liberation and co-operation.
Whilst we imagine and design the golden, democratic, ‘Welfare not Warfare’, left bank, parallel universe EU of the future, to jump from the EU club now I fear could only strengthen the worst xenophobic advocates of extreme free trade that would maintain and intensify Cameron’s Britain as the horrific cesspit for privateers, frackers, arms industry fairs and elitist monarchic oligarchs that it’s become and further undermine the welfare state, the environment and long term industry.
It will of course take a lot of work from diverse groups of journalists, activists, artists, workers and politicians from all over the continent to ensure that this isn’t enshrined as the pan-European norm. As a writer of dumb rhymes, for what it’s worth – this song is my meager contribution and with this forced referendum choice upon me today, personally I’d love my kids to continue to experience the full diversity of Europe that has helped enliven our community. The off-shore elites wont care if the majority can’t travel and work freely within Europe anymore. The problem for any golden age is to recognise itself. Time usually does the trick, unfortunately we’ve only got till June 23rd. I Love EU.
Please consider voting to stay in the EU on June 23rd and please vote out as many right wing climate change-denying nutters wherever you are in the forthcoming local and national elections on May 5th.
Maybe have a look at diem25.org.
Consider a postal vote if you’re overseas.
With Thanks:
After a chance, encouraging conversation with Robin Turner where upon I happened to mention I had a positive number concerning the EU written, I immediately phoned Simon Jones from the Cymru Beats synth emporium and asked if I could come over and record it. Simon produced it – that initial session took about 4 hours. We finished it the day after. Simon took it to Donal Whelan at Hafod Mastering to finish it off. In the meantime Mark James Works made the incredible lyric video in a similar fever of urgency. Thanks to all at Turnstile, Caroline, and Dean at PPL for helping me fill in the forms that need filling and sorting things out to get the music out there in a hurry. Thanks to Dark Arts, Berlin for moisturising the unfamiliar skin of Facebook and occasionally some other futuristic medias on my behalf. Thanks to Super Furry Animals for putting up with me. Come and see us on tour!
#iloveEU
The Minneapolis Sound (KTCA 1988)
Examines the Minneapolis music scene, combining clips from several music videos and interviews with fans, critics, and major recording artists from the Twin Cities.
Featuring: Prince, The Time, Morris Day, Jerome Benton, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, Alexander O'Neal, The Jets, The Replacements & Husker Du
Featuring: Prince, The Time, Morris Day, Jerome Benton, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, Alexander O'Neal, The Jets, The Replacements & Husker Du
Saturday, 23 April 2016
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